[dataweaver]

Frankly, a lot of my comments here have been a reaction to a feeling that I’ve been getting from your posts, that you somehow think that you’re improving MtA by switching over to GURPS and replacing MtA’s generic, universal magic system with a fractured assortment of distinct magic systems. (Oh, the irony!) I haven’t been trying to simulate MtA so much as I've been attempting to salvage those aspects of MtA that I like that you’ve been jettisoning.

As I understand it — and I’m not trying to be judgmental here — what you’re after is a setting that superficially resembles MtA (in that it features a diverse selection of magicians, each with their own kind of magic) without getting into any of the philosophical depths that MtA plumbs. Which is fine; but I’d suggest that you either run the game with a group that knows very little about MtA to avoid misunderstandings or “file off the serial numbers” (e.g., change the names of the various factions) and present it as a game that’s loosely inspired by MtA but is not attempting to be MtA. Either way, the goal should be to discourage people from drawing comparisons between your game and MtA: they should be treated as separate things, each to be judged on its own merits. Stop trying to call it an adaptation of MtA, and I’ll stop trying to insist that you adapt MtA. ;)

One advantage of going with “loosely inspired by” instead of “adaptation of” is that you get to use MtA as a starting point, branching out from there. The nine Traditions presented in MtA aren’t what I’d use if I were devising an MtA-like setting of my own, as there are some styles of magic that get awkwardly lumped together into a single Tradition and others that end up split up over several Traditions.

For instance, I’d be inclined to add a Tradition of Necromancers who deal with ghosts and related entities, drawing inspiration from such sources as Aztec, ancient Egyptian, central African, and Caribbean mythologies (e.g., the Aztecs’ blood sacrifices; the ancient Egyptian concepts of the soul and the afterlife, which drove their practice of mummification; central African traditions of ancestor worship; and the Loa of Voodoo fame). Currently, such concepts kinda sorta (but not really) get shoehorned into the Euthanatoi or the Dreamspeakers, but are primarily represented in MtA by various Crafts. This would also be the way to include psychics, since there isn’t really a Tradition that fits that mold.